


in which Charley Pollard walks into the forest in a really bad mood and walks out in a much better one

by LadyofLothal



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Autumn, Cute, F/M, Fictober, Fictober 2020, Fluff, Forests, Nature, Tags Are Hard, Yes I'm making that a tag, eight and charley being cute, hello it is the first day of fictober and i am here with some lovely charleight FLUFF, uhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26766358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyofLothal/pseuds/LadyofLothal
Summary: Charley is in a grouchy mood and the Doctor is way too energetic, they're walking through a thick forest, what could possibly go wrong??--Fictober 2020 day 1, based on the prompt "forest"
Relationships: Eighth Doctor & Charley Pollard, Eighth Doctor/Charley Pollard
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14
Collections: Fictober 2020





	in which Charley Pollard walks into the forest in a really bad mood and walks out in a much better one

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote something NOT STUPIDLY ANGSTY FOR ONCE?!?! WHATTT?!?! seriously this is like my absolute first time trying to write something fluffy and I'm actually really pleased with how it turned out, so I really hope y'all like it! :D  
> also this is half an hour late for the first day of Fictober, oooops :/  
> most of the fics I do for this challenge will not be this long, but I got started on this one with just a vague idea of where it was going and then I had Cute Thoughts about where it could go next and it just kept growing.  
> alrighty, notes are done, have fun reading, and I'll see you again with more new fic soon!

Charley Pollard was past her ankles in mud, and it wasn’t doing anything to help her mood. She’d woken up that morning hoping for a quieter day around the TARDIS after a nonstop week of alien invasions, homicidal androids, and shape-shifting sentient space goop, but the moment she’d entered the console room she’d known it wasn’t going to happen. The Doctor had been bouncing all over the place, full of some secret surprise he’d cooked up to show her. He had allegedly been waiting hours for her to get up and felt the need to complain about the human need for so much sleep. These comments mainly served to get Charley’s irritation riled up at him, and she had made some snarky remark that she couldn't now remember and he hadn't even seemed to register. And now they’d been slogging through a forest for well over an hour. Her hair was sticking in her eyes and across her face, and she scowled angrily in the direction of the energetic Time Lord springing down the path ahead of her.

“Doctor! Slow down! My feet are sinking up in this mud and I’m going to lose track of you!” The word likely sounded whinier coming out of her mouth than was necessary, but Charley didn’t have enough energy to care right now.

“Hurry up Charley!” The Doctor made no effort to slow down, simply turning his head to call back to her over his shoulder as he continued all but skipping down the non-existent path. “If you didn’t move so slowly you wouldn’t have to worry about sinking!”

Charley saw the thick vine stretched across his intended path an instant before it was too late (though she thought later with some guilt that she likely wouldn’t have said anything even if she had seen it with plenty of time to warn him). The Doctor still hadn’t turned his head around to face the same direction that his feet were moving, his eye having caught on a brightly-colored flying insect off to his left, and so he walked right into the vine, tripping dramatically and falling flat on his face in the mud.

Charley had the horrible urge to giggle at the sight of it all, even though she knew it was rotten of her. So instead, she fought back a grin and made her way to his side. She stopped next to him just as he was raising his head from the muddy ground and blinking his eyes like he’d been stunned by the sudden change in scenery.

“I did tell you to slow down,” she couldn’t help but say, as she offered a hand to help him up, which he accepted with a slightly embarrassed smile.

“That you did, Charley. I should’ve listened. I was just so eager to get to the place we’re going, and then there was that marvelous insect that flew by just as my head was turned—” he was looking around for it again already, either oblivious or uncaring about the mud now smeared across his forehead and nose, and bits of colorful alien vegetation clinging to his coat and sticking out of his curls, and Charley know he would be off hunting the insect if he got half a chance to do so.

Without hesitation, Charley reached into the pocket of her jacket, pulled out the handkerchief she’d stuffed into it moodily right before leaving the TARDIS, and reached up to wipe the mud from the Doctor’s face. The Doctor instantly stilled and closed his eyes obediently, like a child submitting to his mother’s fussing after a romp in the garden. She stood up on her tiptoes to reach better and hummed softly in concentration, then rocked back to her heels and made a soft noise of satisfaction as she surveyed her work. Then she went to work gently extracting leaves from his hair, being careful not to pull too hard and noting just how soft his curls were between her fingers. 

"I'm afraid I don't have enough handkerchief here to do much about the mud on your coat," she said a bit ruefully, looking at the smudges across the front of the velvet and giving one an experimental rub.

"Ah don't worry, the TARDIS will take care of it for me," he said, and she looked back up to meet his eyes.

He was gazing down at her fondly with a soft smile on his lips, in a way that made her breath slow a little, and truth be told Charley would be perfectly happy just standing like this for a while longer. But a thorny creeper vine had somehow wound itself around his leg in his fall, so he bent to disentangle it, careful not to break off any unnecessary thorns or bend the vine too harshly before releasing it and allowing it to spring back to the main plant. The level of care he took not to unnecessarily hurt the plant despite its annoying nature wasn’t lost on Charley, and she felt something inside of her chest warm as she watched him.

He grinned at her as he stood back up, and offered his hand, which she gladly took.

“Now I won’t go too fast for you, and if there are any more vines in the path, we’ll just both trip over them together,” he said with far too much cheer. Charley just chuckled and shook her head, somehow feeling in a much better mood now, and they set off again side-by-side.

The Doctor pointed out different plants to her and rambled about the chemical processes that caused them to all be such vibrant and striking colors—somehow, Charley hadn’t noticed just how stunning they were before. Bright oranges, yellows, and crimsons were all around them, like the most vivid autumn day on Earth, but somehow magnified by the way the sun filtered through the trees and the iridescent insects flitting back and forth from plant to plant. The air wasn’t quite cold, but it wasn’t exactly warm either, a perfect temperature to match the autumnal shades of the foliage.

Suddenly, the Doctor began to slow, and Charley realized they’d been working their way up an incline for a little while. She’d been too busy looking at the surroundings and listening vaguely to his rambling in the background. He came to a full stop, and she looked at him quizzically.

“Everything alright, Doctor? Why have we stopped?”

“We’re almost to where we’ve been going, I thought you might want a moment to catch your breath before we get there. You’ll need it,” he added cryptically with a twinkle in his eye.

“Well my breath is all caught up just fine now let’s go on!” His excitement had become contagious, and although she had no idea where they were going or why she was ready to get there and find out.

“Alright, Charley, prepare to be amazed,” he said through a broad grin as he squeezed her hand slightly and began leading the way again.

The trees around them suddenly disappeared, and they walked out into clear sunlight and a small section of grass that ended in what looked like a cliff. As Charley walked forward slowly, she realized they were quite high, and more of the forest they’d been walking through extended on all sides below them, with a sky as clear and blue as any she'd ever seen spread out above. She gasped as the sun struck the leaves and they suddenly looked as vibrant as ever.

“It’s like everything is on fire,” she breathed in awe.

She could feel the Doctor’s excitement as he stood next to her, overlooking it all. The insects swarmed and swirled across the tops of the trees, catching the sun in a way that was almost too much to look at, reflecting facets of light so bright they were almost painful. Charley held tight to his hand and ventured a bit closer to the drop-off to see even better. The Doctor didn’t seem to think it a bad idea, as he came with her willingly. As they neared the edge, he stopped, dropped her hand, and plopped down in the thick grass under their feet, patting the spot next to him. Without any hesitation, Charley sat right next to him, pressed against his side, their legs hanging over the edge with nothing below but hundreds of feet of open air. It was the slightest bit terrifying, but she felt perfectly fine with it as long as she was next to the Doctor. By his side, she felt warm and safe and perfectly content. She reached for his hand again and he gave it, and they both gazed out over the incredible scenery below them.


End file.
